Giving written or oral evidence to a House of Commons select committee

Sections in this guide

What are select committees and select committee inquiries?

What happens during a committee inquiry

Sending written evidence to a select committee

Giving oral evidence to a select committee

Powers of select committees, and parliamentary privilege

Layout of a select committee room

Map of the parliamentary estate

What are select committees and select committee inquiries?

What is a select committee?

Select committees check and report on a range of areas including the work of government departments. A House of Commons Select Committee includes Members of Parliament (MPs) from different political parties, with one elected as Chair by other MPs. A select committee often asks for written or oral evidence to help with its work.

What is a select committee inquiry?

An inquiry is an investigation into a specific topic.

It usually involves the select committee:

• choosing a topic
• inviting written submissions from the public (known as ‘written evidence’)
• sometimes running other activities, such as surveys, to hear people's views
• arranging panels of people with relevant knowledge (known as ‘witnesses’) to ask them questions (known as ‘oral evidence’)

and

• using this evidence to write and publish a report with recommendations for the Government

The Government must formally respond to a report from a select committee and should do so within two months.

This is the usual pattern, but committees can decide to work in different ways. There's no set length of time that an inquiry takes.

What happens during a committee inquiry?

Key terms

Call for evidence

When a select committee launches a new inquiry, it will publish a "call for evidence" on its website to invite written evidence from people who have some expertise on the topic. There will be key questions and themes that the Committee will seek to explore and answer through its inquiry.

Evidence

Information that the select committee formally receives to help it carry out its inquiry. This takes the form of written or oral evidence. Committees also find out what people think informally, for example through surveys, visits, or meetings with people.

Inquiry

A formal process where a select committee investigates a particular issue within its remit.

Oral evidence

Where witnesses answer questions put to them by the MPs on the Committee. Oral evidence sessions are sometimes referred to as hearings. They are usually in public and available to watch online.

Witness

A person with relevant knowledge and experience whom the Committee invites to answer questions during an oral evidence session. Witnesses can be researchers, people with personal experience, representative groups, and the Government.

Written evidence

Written submissions that answer the questions the Committee is interested in. Any member of the public can send us written evidence. You can ask us for reasonable adjustments if you need them to send us your evidence.

Select committee inquiries

Committees choose the subjects for their inquiries within the areas that they are responsible for.

They can decide to do their inquiries in different ways and for different lengths of time. If you're involved in an inquiry, the Committee's staff will be able to tell you what is happening.

Most inquiries have some or all of the following stages:

Call for written evidence

The Committee will publicly announce the main themes and questions of the inquiry on its website and on social media. We call this a "call for evidence".

The announcement will invite people to send in written submissions addressing the topics the Committee is interested in. It will usually ask you to send your evidence by a specific deadline. This is known as "written evidence".

A committee may also contact people directly to ask them to send written evidence.

You can send in written evidence online through the relevant inquiry page on the Committee’s website.

Most written evidence is published during an inquiry. You can ask for your evidence to be anonymous or confidential.

We want everyone’s voice to be heard in Parliament. Please contact Committee staff if for any reason you require a reasonable adjustment to help you send evidence. Contact details for a committee team are at the bottom of committees' webpages.

A committee may also contact people directly to ask them to send written evidence.

You can send in written evidence online through the relevant inquiry page on the Committee’s website.

Most written evidence is published during an inquiry. You can ask for your evidence to be anonymous or confidential.

We want everyone’s voice to be heard in Parliament. Please contact Committee staff if for any reason you require a reasonable adjustment to help you send evidence. Contact details for a committee team are at the bottom of committees' webpages.

You can find out more about how to send written evidence in the section: making a submission of written evidence to a select committee.

Hearing oral evidence

The Committee will talk to potential witnesses and announce who it would like to hear oral evidence from, and when.

Committees usually publicise sessions on social media such as Twitter.

Oral evidence sessions will usually take place in House of Commons committee rooms in Westminster. During the Covid-19 pandemic, oral evidence sessions took place virtually. Witnesses can still ask to appear by video link if they wish. The sessions are usually open to the public and are broadcast live on www.parliamentlive.tv.

In a session, the Committee will ask witnesses questions.

Transcripts (written records) of the sessions will be published on the Committee’s website.

Recordings of past public meetings are available at www.parliamentlive.tv

You can find out more about giving oral evidence to a committee in the section: giving oral evidence to a select committee.

Publishing a report

After hearing evidence, the Committee usually publishes a report with recommendations for action by the Government or other public bodies. The Committee can't require anyone to act, but it can say what it thinks they should do. You can find the report on the Committee's website.

This doesn't always happen at the end of an inquiry. The Committee might decide simply to publish the evidence it has heard or to write a letter to the Government or a public body to express its views.

The Government is expected to formally respond to the report within two months. You can find the Government's response on the Committee's website.

Sending written evidence to a select committee

This section provides guidance on submitting written evidence to a committee. It also discusses what happens once your submission is received by a committee.

How do I find out about a call for evidence?

Select committees issue calls for evidence on Parliament's website. You can find the webpages of individual select committees using the search function.

You can also see a full list of inquiries that are currently accepting evidence, and search by keyword.

You can follow individual select committees on Twitter to learn about current inquiries and be reminded of deadlines. Links to their Twitter accounts are available on their webpages.

UK Parliament’s Knowledge Exchange Unit posts regular information about new inquiries from all committees on @UKParl_Research.

Who can send in written evidence?

Anyone can send in written evidence to an inquiry. You don’t have to be an academic expert or a member of an organisation. Committees want to hear a range of different views from different people.

You might know about the topic because of your work, research, or study. You may have personal experience of it, like using health services or claiming benefits. All this expertise is valuable to our inquiries.

You don't have to answer all of the questions in the call for evidence.

You may find it helpful to look at examples of published written evidence which you can find on committee webpages.

A good example is the Digital, Media, Culture and Sport Committee’s published written evidence for its inquiry, Economics of music streaming.

How to make a submission

The Committee's website will tell you which inquiries are open for people to send evidence. You can click through to the inquiry page to read the call for evidence.

It looks like this:

Just click on "read the call for evidence before submitting" and follow the steps on the website.

Reasonable adjustments

If you need an adjustment to the normal process to send your evidence, please get in touch with Committee staff. You can find out how to contact them at the bottom of the Committee's webpage.

They'll be able to talk about what we can do to help you send your evidence, so far as reasonably practical. That might include sending it to us in a different format or giving you more time to prepare your evidence.

We'll be happy to help you.

How to write useful evidence: top tips

Committees often receive a lot of written evidence. There are things you can do to make your evidence more useful to the Committee and its inquiry.

These tips are for anyone submitting evidence, whether you are writing on behalf of an organisation or in another professional role, or have personal experiences that you want to share with the Committee.

Key tips

• Keep your evidence short and to the point
• Write in plain English and explain any technical terms
• Use section headings and numbered paragraphs
• Make sure your evidence is an original creation, not a document that has already been published. You can refer to or attach material published elsewhere within a submission. It should be clearly referenced, preferably with a hyperlink to the original
• Address the terms of reference of the inquiry. You don’t have to address every point that the Committee has asked about. Only include information that is relevant to the terms of reference
• Include factual information you think the Committee will find useful, particularly if it comes from your or your organisation's own knowledge, work, research, or experiences
• Set out the actions you would like the Government or others to take and explain why you think that these actions would improve things.
• Send us your evidence as early as you can—this gives the Committee more time to take it into account

You might also:

• Include your thoughts about the most important questions that the Committee should ask the Government
• Think about what you or your organisation can bring to the debate that others might not. What is your unique perspective, experience, or expertise?

To send evidence via the online portal the document must:

• Be less than 25 MB in size
• Be in Word (doc, docx, rtf, txt ooxml or odt format, not pdf)
• Contain as few logos or embedded pictures as possible
• Contain no macros. A macro is a shortcut to a task you do repeatedly, often used in some computer software such as Microsoft Excel
• Be a single document. If there are any annexes or appendices, these should be included in the same document
• Committees welcome charts and graphs, but a lot of formatting is stripped out when uploaded to the website. The charts and graphs will still be there, but it is likely that your page breaks and wrap-around pictures will disappear. Also, headers and footers tend to disappear

Please note the following:

• You should be careful not to comment on matters currently before or about to be before a court of law. If this is likely to be an issue, Committee staff can advise how this might affect the written evidence you can submit
• Committees usually can't help with individual problems that you're having with a Government department or service provider. They don't normally investigate individual complaints. If you need help with an individual problem you are having, it may be better to contact your constituency MP
• You should always be honest in the evidence you send to a committee. Deliberately misleading a committee is a serious matter and can amount to what is called a contempt of the House of Commons. If you mislead a committee, you could be investigated by the Committee of Privileges. If you realise you've made a mistake, you should tell the Committee staff as soon as you can
• If you include personal information about other people in your submission (including your friends and family), the Committee may decide not to publish it. We generally advise to make your submission about your own experiences and to keep information about other people to a minimum

What happens to the evidence once sent in

Committees consider all the written submissions they receive. They use the information to come up with questions to ask witnesses, often including Government ministers, and to inform the conclusions and recommendations for their final reports.

Committees publish most of the evidence they receive on their websites. People can then find it on search engines. It stays published forever.

Your evidence won't be published immediately and sometimes it might take some time before it's published. That's because we sometimes receive a lot of evidence and it takes us time to get it ready for publication.

A committee does not have to accept your submission as evidence. If it does, it does not have to publish any or all of it. This may happen if a submission is very long or it would be inappropriate to give it parliamentary privilege (see Committees and the operation of parliamentary privilege for further information). This includes submissions that are unnecessarily offensive or include defamatory comments. Select committees generally do not investigate cases of individual grievance. Classified information, or information that is personally or commercially confidential, is typically not published.

A committee might refer to or quote your evidence in its report. A full list of all the people and organisations who have sent evidence is published in the back of the report, with links to the published written evidence. If you're listed in the back of the report, it doesn't mean that you agree with all the conclusions and recommendations.

Once you've sent in your evidence, you need to get permission from Committee staff if you would like to publish your evidence elsewhere. If you are given permission, you should be aware that you may be held legally responsible for its content. Do not publish your evidence before the Committee does.

Everyone should feel free to send their evidence to a committee if they want to. If you are concerned about the possible consequences of sending us evidence, please contact Committee staff before you submit. You can also contact us with any concerns after you have sent your evidence.

Can my evidence be anonymous or not published?

We usually publish evidence, because it’s important that the public can see the information the Committee has considered in its inquiry and who wrote it. Sometimes, the Committee may need to redact (remove) sensitive information before publishing a piece of evidence. When the Committee has done this, it will say so in the published version.

If there is an important reason why your evidence should be anonymous or confidential, please tell us.

You may want your evidence to be anonymous—meaning we’ll publish your evidence, but not your name or details that could identify you.

You may want your evidence to be confidential—meaning we’ll read your evidence but we won’t publish it.

If you want either of these things, tick the box on the website to say so when you are sending it to us. Please explain at the start of your evidence why you are asking for this.

We can’t guarantee that this will happen because the Committee has the power to decide whether evidence is kept anonymous or confidential.

Sometimes the call for evidence will say whether or not the Committee will accept anonymous or confidential evidence for that inquiry. This is more likely when the subject is personal or sensitive.

Please contact us before you send your evidence if you have any questions about this.

Data protection

The personal information you supply will be processed in accordance with the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Find out more about how your data will be used, and how to contact us if you have any queries.

And finally…

We appreciate that it can be very time-consuming to prepare and send in written evidence for select committee inquiries. Select committees play a key part in helping Parliament hold the Government to account. Without your efforts, this would simply not be possible. On behalf of all select committees we wish to thank you for providing written evidence.

Giving oral evidence to a select committee

This section provides guidance on what happens when you are scheduled to give oral evidence at a committee hearing. It discusses what happens before the hearing, what will happen during the hearing, and what happens to your oral evidence once you have given it.

How do I get invited to give oral evidence?

Often, the committee will review the written evidence and choose who it would like to hear from. It may have been particularly interested by a submission and would like more information, or there may be gaps in the evidence it wishes to fill. Not all witnesses will have sent in written evidence to the inquiry, but many will have done.

Sometimes committees take oral evidence without having any written evidence.

Select committees want to hear a variety of opinions from a range of stakeholders, such as:

• academic experts
• groups and associations
• Government ministers, and
• people with personal experience of the subject matter.

When the committee has decided who it wants to invite, staff will usually send an invitation by e-mail.

Before the oral evidence session

The committee will publish the details of the session on its website. It will include the date and time of the hearing and the names of the witnesses. It will normally make an announcement on Twitter too.

How Committee staff can help you

Committee staff will send you an e-mail to invite you to give evidence. They can provide further information about the inquiry and answer any questions you may have. You have the option of attending the session in person or participating via video link. If you attend in person, Committee staff will provide a fast-track letter so you can avoid queues to enter Parliament on the day. Committee staff will offer you a full briefing by telephone or video call a few days before the session, to give you time to prepare.

This will include:

Explaining where the session will take place 

This will usually be in a House of Commons committee room if you are attending in person. This will be located in the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) or in Portcullis House (the building above Westminster Underground station).

Get a feel for what a committee room looks like:

You can find a typical room layout in 'Layout of a Select Committee Room'

 

Watch a recording of an oral evidence session

 

Our 10-minute video 'Accessibility at UK Parliament' includes sections on arriving at Westminster, entry, security, access, assistance devices, and tours.

Checking your video, audio, and background

If you are attending via video link, and any other relevant technical points.

Letting you know if other witnesses are appearing at the same session

Committees may hold two or more panels of witnesses at the same hearing. If other witnesses are scheduled to appear before you, the Committee might find it helpful if you can attend earlier to listen to their evidence (whether in person or virtually). This is so that you can comment on the previous witnesses’ evidence.

Advising you on claiming back your expenses

The House of Commons will cover reasonable expenses related to a witness attending a committee hearing. Committee staff can offer advice on claiming expenses such as for travel and caring responsibilities. In some circumstances, committees can book and pay for tickets on behalf of a witness in advance of a session. Please contact the Committee staff to discuss this.

You can use this time to ask any questions you might have about the process

Staff should be able to let you know informally what the Committee is likely to ask you about. This is to help you prepare for the session. However, the Committee may ask you questions on other topics.

Staff will try to let you know if you might need to gather particular information ahead of the session.

Reasonable adjustments

Committee staff are happy to help with reasonable adjustments to accommodate a witness’s needs. Adjustments that we may be able to help with include, but are not limited to:

• Participating via video link
• British Sign Language interpretation
• Being accompanied by a facilitator for assistance with mobility or communication needs
• Arranging access through a quieter entrance than our main visitor entrance
• Step-free routes

Your welfare

Some of our inquiries could not happen without listening to the people affected by an issue. Personal testimony is powerful, and it can help inform a committee’s thinking on a subject. Such inquiries are hard-hitting and will often include sensitive or distressing material.

We take your welfare seriously and we can support people giving sensitive evidence. Please contact Committee staff for further information. This includes various options for giving evidence.

We also have an obligation to report any safeguarding concerns we become aware of. That means we will tell someone if you, or someone else, is at risk of harm.

How you can help Committee staff

It is helpful if you let Committee staff know the following information:

• How you would like your name and job title to appear. If you are representing an organisation, it is usually left to the organisation to decide which of its members or staff should represent it at the hearing. Committees may ask for specific individuals or post holders to attend
• If you expect to send in a claim for expenses, please contact the Committee staff in advance. They will be able to tell you what you can claim for
• If you know that matters may arise during the session which are currently or about to be before a court of law. If you think this is likely, you should discuss with Committee staff how this might affect the oral evidence you can give. Committees can't hear evidence about active legal cases because that could prevent justice being done
• If there is something that you need us to do to enable you to give evidence. It helps the Committee if you get in touch beforehand to let them know of any particular requirements you have, so that we can talk to you about we can best support you
• If you have a reason for wishing to provide some of your evidence in private. Oral evidence sessions are almost always public, with members of the press and public able to attend, and they are broadcast live and archived online. In appropriate circumstances evidence can be given in private. Please discuss this with Committee staff

Diversity and inclusion

The House of Commons is committed to diversity and inclusion and select committees aim to hear from as wide a range of voices as possible. Where an organisation is putting forward a representative, we ask you to bear this in mind when choosing who to send.

Ahead of the session, Committee staff will send you a link to a diversity survey. This is anonymous and voluntary. Completing it will help the House of Commons understand whether the witnesses that appear before select committees are representative of the UK population, and take steps to improve.

Select committee staff and MPs do not have access to your answers, which are held securely in line with data protection regulations. If you do not receive a copy of the survey, please contact Committee staff who will be happy to send you the link.

On the day of the session

Oral evidence sessions usually last for up to two hours, but some may take longer.

There is no dress code for witnesses, but please be aware the session will be broadcast live and archived online.

If you are appearing virtually, please join the link at least ten minutes early so that your video and audio can be checked.

If you are appearing in person, you should aim to arrive at Westminster at least 30 minutes before you are due to appear before the Committee. A map of Parliament is available to help you find your way.

You will need to pass through an airport-style security checkpoint to enter the House of Commons. Find out more about visiting Parliament.

• If the Committee is meeting in the Palace of Westminster, please enter through Cromwell Green entrance, opposite Westminster Abbey. A Visitor Assistant will meet you and prepare you for security. Visitor Assistants can be identified by their navy blue uniform with teal necktie. Depending on what you have arranged with Committee staff, either a member of Committee staff or a Visitor Assistant will escort you to the room
• If the Committee is meeting in Portcullis House, please enter the building from the Victoria Embankment entrance. Depending on what you have arranged with Committee staff, after you have been through security you can go straight to the meeting room or a member of Committee staff will meet and accompany you to the room. If you need step-free access to a meeting room in Portcullis House, please just let Committee staff know beforehand and we will arrange this

Accessibility

Step-free access is available. While there are ramps around Parliament, most step-free routes to your committee room will require the use of a lift.

It is possible to pre-book accessible parking spaces if necessary. Find out more about access options for Parliament here.

Please let the Committee staff know in advance if you would like to discuss access arrangements.

Water will be provided, but food and other drinks are not normally permitted.

If you need to have food or drinks other than water as a reasonable adjustment, please discuss with a member of Committee staff.

Covid-19

During the recent covid-19 pandemic, public health measures were put in place across the parliamentary estate for the safety of all those visiting and working in Parliament. If you are giving evidence in person, please ask committee staff for the latest advice if you are unsure. Please do not come to Parliament if you are feeling unwell, particularly if you are experiencing covid-19 symptoms. If you develop symptoms of covid-19 or test positive ahead of the session, please contact committee staff as soon as possible. They may be able to help you participate by video link if you would like to.

What happens during the session

You may find it helpful to watch a recording of a previous session on www.parliamentlive.tv/Committees to see how they work.

A plan of a typical committee room can be found at 'Layout of a Select Committee Room.'

The Chair will facilitate the session. The Chair will introduce the session and invite the witnesses to introduce themselves. Then the MPs on the Committee will put questions to the witnesses.

Some questions may be directed at individuals, for example about their written evidence. Others may be directed at the whole panel.

If you do not have anything to add to what the other witnesses have said, you are encouraged to say this so that the Committee can move on to other topics.

The focus of the evidence session is on the Committee asking witnesses questions. There are no presentations or slides. In some circumstances, the Chair may ask witnesses to make an opening statement before questioning starts. You should be told in advance if this is the case. However, committees generally prefer to start asking questions immediately. For that reason, if there is information you would have liked to include in an opening statement, please consider whether you could instead provide it to the Committee in writing.

You may appeal to the Committee Chair if you consider that a particular question is unfair or that you are not the appropriate person to answer it. You can ask for time to consider an answer or to seek advice.

If you do not have the information to answer a question immediately to hand, you may offer to come back to the Committee in writing on a particular point. A committee may also ask you to send in further written information on it.

Parliament's Behaviour Code

All visitors and members of the parliamentary community must adhere to Parliament’s Behaviour Code.

You can expect all staff and members of the select committee to treat you with respect, courtesy, and professionalism.

Most witnesses have a positive experience and select committees are extremely grateful for their time and expertise.

If for any reason you feel your treatment falls short of the standards of Parliament’s Behaviour Code, please contact Committee staff. You can also make a complaint via Parliament’s online feedback form.

If you feel you have experienced bullying, harassment, or sexual misconduct before or after the hearing, you can make a complaint via the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS). Formal committee hearings are not covered by the ICGS, but committees try to ensure their questioning is appropriate, particularly if witnesses are in some way vulnerable.

After the session

The Committee would be grateful if you could send any further information which you agreed to provide as soon as possible. This information is ordinarily treated as written evidence and published alongside the other written evidence received by the Committee.

Your experience is important to us. You will be sent a survey after you have given evidence to ask questions about:

• the information you were given ahead of the session
• your treatment by staff, and
• how things went on the day

The survey is voluntary. It is separate to the diversity survey you were sent before giving evidence, but if you did not complete the diversity questions you will be given the option to do so here.

It helps the select committee team know what we are doing well and take steps to improve.

Your answers are anonymous and are not linked to the evidence you give. Committee staff and MPs will not have access to your answers.

If you are not sent a link to the survey, please contact Committee staff.

Transcripts of evidence

A transcript of what was said in oral evidence is published on the Committee’s website a few days after the hearing. You may also be sent the transcript by the Committee staff and asked to identify any additional information asked for by members of the Committee.

It is important for witnesses to be honest and open in the evidence they give to committees. To knowingly mislead a committee is a contempt of the House. A contempt of the House is any act that obstructs either House of Parliament in performing its functions.

If you need to make corrections to the transcript to ensure that the final record of what you said to the Committee is accurate and complete, you should send a separate note. This will be added to the evidence either as a footnote or as a separate document.

What happens to oral evidence?

The evidence you give in your session is carefully considered by the Committee and is used to help inform the conclusions and recommendations of its inquiry. If your evidence is referred to or quoted in the Committee’s report, the transcript will be cited in a footnote.

A full list of witnesses, along with links to the transcripts, is included at the back of the Committee's final report. Inclusion on this list does not mean that you endorse the conclusions and recommendations of the report. These are solely those of the Committee.

The Committee’s report to the House

A committee usually ends its inquiry by agreeing a report to the House. The Committee may decide to issue embargoed copies of the report up to 72 hours in advance of publication.

If you gave oral evidence to the Committee you may receive a copy of the report as a pdf file in advance of publication. You must not share this with anybody until the report is published.

Committees occasionally hold press conferences to coincide with report publication.

If a press conference is planned, details will be given in the press notice announcing the report’s publication.

And finally…

We appreciate it can be very time-consuming to give oral evidence to a select committee. Hearing your evidence is a core part of select committees’ scrutiny of the Government and other bodies. On behalf of all select committees, we thank you for providing oral evidence.

Powers of select committees, and parliamentary privilege

This is a very complicated subject and every case will be different. Please contact the Committee staff if you would like to learn more about the points raised below or if you are worried about anything. Contact details of individual committees can be found on the Committee’s website.

Powers of committees in gathering evidence

When gathering evidence, almost all select committees have a power to send for “persons, papers and records”. This means that committees can insist that witnesses attend an evidence session or produce certain papers and other material. This formal power is rarely used.

When hearing oral evidence, committees have the power to require witnesses to answer questions. In practice, evidence-taking before committees is more informal and such powers are rarely used. A committee also has power to take evidence on oath. If this procedure is used, witnesses are liable to the laws of perjury. This power is also rarely used.

Committees and parliamentary privilege

Written and oral evidence is protected by Parliamentary privilege. In practical terms this means that evidence given formally to a committee cannot be used as a basis of civil or criminal proceedings against the witness or any other person. But if you give such evidence in public, what you say will be on the record.

If you wish to say things to a committee which you could not say without legal liability in another setting, please discuss this with Committee staff in advance.

The protection which absolute privilege gives to those who give evidence must not be abused. For this reason, committees will often refuse to accept (or accept and decline to publish) written evidence which contains material which it would be unlawful to publish without privilege, or which is defamatory, and may take certain oral evidence in private.

Privilege does not apply to written submissions published before the Committee publishes them.

Layout of a select committee room

The precise room layout may differ slightly for some meetings. For example, the shorthand writer sometimes sits alongside the Committee staff at the side of the horseshoe instead of in its centre.

 

 

Map of the parliamentary estate

Download a map of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament.